Interesting iPod lawsuit

While most of the monopoly/anti-trust stuff that gets so easily thrown around is without merit, it's still interesting to see that somebody is suing Apple for only allowing iTunes to work with its iPod, thereby freezing out competitors. The uphill climb of this suit is that it must convince the court that iTunes is a unique market in itself, different from other online music sites.

The typical perspective is that if you want an iPod, you buy it knowing that you'll only be able to buy music online from iTunes. If you want to purchase songs from other sites, you likely wouldn't buy an iPod.

However, consider the case of someone who primarily listens to music on their computer, and has built up a considerable collection of purchased songs. If you subsequently decided that you wanted to buy a portable media player, you'd have no choice but an iPod.

Note that I'm not commenting on the merits of the case, just pointing out a different spin.